AT&T

What is amazing to me is just how small full featured devices are getting. The HTC Shift ultra mobile PC or UMPC packs the Microsoft Vista OS, WiFi and now EVDO. Sure it has a weak processor, battery and WiFi but what do you expect for a full featured laptop that fits in your pocket?

I came across a great review from Laptop Magazine of the HTC Shift X9000 which does a good job of explaining why it barely justifies its $1,499 price tag. Can you believe this little device has the ability to switch from 800x480 and 1024x600 pixel resolution modes in a seven-inch screen?

This is an example of just how powerful these pocket-sized plus devices are these days.

As more and more customers deploy Microsoft's OCS, they are asking videoconferencing companies to help interconnect their products with their shiny new unified communications systems. But it isn't just video integration these companies want… These clients also want interconnection with telepresence.

Many large multinational companies in financial and manufacturing are asking for this integration according to Tandberg CTO Hakon Dahle.

The company started embracing OCS this past January and it is seeing traction now and is a shipping product according to Dahle.

He went on to tell me that the telepresence market is also doing well - both personal and room-based. To differentiate themselves in this space, the company is not just focusing on quality but interoperability via standard protocols and codecs. Tandberg is allowing telepresence connectivity to OCS clients and executive desktops in order to allow broader use of this high-quality videoconferencing technology.

Dahle predicts that in the next few years, HD will be everywhere and UC will be tightly integrated with video.

Avaya has certainly made unified communications history today with a suite of announcements that will certainly rattle the competitive landscape. UC will never be the same in my opinion.

The New Jersey-based company's biggest news had to do with affordable unified communications… For a paltry $99/user you can get full-featured UC for your workers. This is in my opinion beyond inexpensive for UC solutions from such a premium name in the business.

And we aren't talking about bare bones solutions here… You get a thick or thin client, integration with Microsoft and IBM and best of all you get access to about 700 or so Avaya communications features via your UC client. The thin client support means your new MacBook Air will be allowed to join the Avaya low-cost UC party.

Recently I spent a good number of hours at the sprawling Somers, NY campus of IBM where the company announced to the media their intention to spend a billion dollars in unified communications development over the next three years. IBM is a major player in the UC space but the company has been getting beaten up in the marketing department by Microsoft. Microsoft is late to the UC game in fact and some of their products are behind IBM. You wouldn't know any of this from the blitz of a campaign Microsoft is running however.

Simply stated, while spending on R&D is essential, the company will likely have to soon respond to the Microsoft PR and marketing onslaught.

I try not to play favorites with the news and instead of giving you my picks of the week, I defer to TMC editors who picked the following stories as some of the week's best. This week, we have a truly diverse group of stories that range from the economy to open source and even SIP trunking.

Hopefully you will find them interesting as well and if you don't - please don't get mad at me as I am just the messenger.

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Ixia Intros Quality of Experience and Service Validation Platform for Triple Play

This morning I woke to horrible news as I just learned Russell Shaw has passed away. Apparently he died in his hotel room on a business trip. I cannot be sadder. Russell was a fantastic guy… And he seemed to enjoy his work more than just about anyone I know.

While SIP is an excellent protocol which has made the IP communications market a much better place, there are security challenges with this protocol as it is very open and not inherently secure. It is ironic that the openness of the protocol itself is exactly what makes it a challenge to secure.

To aid people looking for more information on securing SIP, in areas such as SIP trunking and enterprise SIP deployment, TMC has a free webinar taking place on April 10, 2008. You can also view an archived version of the webinar if you can't make this date.